Famous Liars

I think it is fair to say that if the Orange Menace had the same biological syndrome as Pinocchio, Trump Tower could have been the world’s tallest structure made entirely of nose-sized logs. But enough about famous liars.

Today is a landmark day in my life and I want to share it with my loyal Jazz Pickles. January 21, 2018, will mark the 33rd anniversary of my publishing a Bizarro cartoon each and every day, 365 days a year. That’s over 12,000 cartoons. Writing and drawing that many gags consistently over time is every bit as challenging as you might imagine. Somehow, though, I managed to make my deadlines through illnesses, the deaths of loved ones, two divorces, several moves, and the loss of my favorite sunglasses back in ’92, which really upset me and that I’ve never been able to replace.

All those years, through good times and bad, I told myself that one day I would retire and become a painter, which was all I ever really wanted to be since I outgrew my childhood aspirations of being a cowboy, astronaut, or secret agent. Remember clenching your teeth and slogging through your homework so you could go outside and play? (For you younger readers, “outside” is where children used to play before the invention of video games and the Internet.) Well, I’ve been in homework mode for 33 years and now I finally get to go outside and play.

Starting tomorrow, January 1 (for readers outside of the U.S., that’s 1 January) my longtime friend and colleague, Wayno, will be drawing the Monday-through-Saturday Bizarro cartoons and I’ll be doing just one each week, on Sunday. Wayno and I have collaborated on around 150 gags over the years and he’s handled two separate weeks of Bizarro as a “guest cartoonist.” He also spent three years as my colorist back around 2010 and we’ve always really enjoyed working together. Some of the gags will be his, some mine, and some will be collaborations between us but he’ll be handling the finished product that you’ll see online and in the newspapers six out of seven days each week. He’ll be drawing in his style but will be using my Bizarro font and, of course, The Secret Symbols.

I’ll still be writing a weekly blog post commenting on Wayno and I did that week, and also posting daily cartoons from my archives on FB, Twitter, and Instagram. I also intend to give regular updates about my fine art projects as well as photos of works in progress. (Here’s a small piece of the oil painting I’m working on right now. SPOILER ALERT for BOB A. : THIS IS A PIECE OF YOUR PAINTING!) I hope you’ll come along with me, just as you have been up till now. I’m super excited about my new life and hope you enjoy my reports.

I posted this cartoon on Instagram last Monday and got a comment alerting me that it is actually summer in the southern hemisphere where Easter Island sits. I suppose that’s my fault because I failed to mention this is not a photo from a textbook but rather a cartoon and therefore not held to a particularly high standard of accuracy. Additionally, Easter Island is close enough to the equator and sea level that snow isn’t an option any time of year.

Here’s a little gag about an old nursery rhyme that nobody teaches their kids anymore. I was taught the first two lines: “There was an old woman who lived in a shoe. She had so many children she didn’t know what to do.”

I assumed it was about the importance of contraception, but what was this bit about a shoe? Then, when I was older, I learned the last two lines: “She gave them some broth without any bread; Then whipped them all soundly and put them to bed.”

Now the meaning is clear. It’s a poem about an elderly woman with eccentric taste in architecture who starves and abuses children. So yes, it is about contraception, but it is aimed at the old woman’s parents, who never should have given birth to this sadistic bitch.

I used to live in New York City––the city that never sleeps, though it does emit a strange, snoring sound from time to time and sometimes farts without apologizing––and the overwhelming majority of taxi drivers there are foreign-born. Considering the number of cabs in NYC (over 13,500 with another 14,000 Uber-style drivers) I think one could make a mathematical case for the likelihood of at least some of those drivers being from Venice and of that subset, perhaps a few are former gondoliers. I’m also guessing that there is no law or ordinance in NYC that expressly prohibits driving in the creative manner in which the gentleman in my cartoon is. So this might actually happen. Just saying.

Some of you more diligent and memoryful Jazz Pickles may recall this gag from my book of pirate cartoons published a few years ago. It was originally published in ‘01 and I was particularly proud of the gag and felt it deserved a wider audience, so I revived it. Now that I look at it, I’m wondering if there aren’t actual services of this sort for folks with only one foot. In the age of the Internet, it seems it would not be that hard to connect folks who have to buy two shoes but only ever wear one, right?

Stay tuned for next week’s cartoon about a snowman with a penile implant; No need for Viagra, just pop it into the freezer for a bit. “…I saw him buying a Bombpop yesterday.”

I actually have a hat like this and you’re living on it. Now if I can just get each person living on my hat to pay the equivalent of one U.S. dollar in return for rent-for-life, I can retire in style and still have enough money left over to fund the shoe-swapping non-profit I described above.

In addition to the semi-retirement I mentioned in the opening paragraphs, there are lots of other new things coming to the Jazz Pickle jar soon. A new website for bizarro.com is underway and almost ready to launch, as well as some new products that we’re super excited about like enamel pins and an Official Bizarro Fan Club with all kinds of cool behind-the-scenes perks.

Until my next post, be smart, be happy, be nice, and fight ignorance and fascism. Also, check out Wayno’s and my posts this week on our various social media sites.

I can appreciate the shoe gag. I’m a big guy and I wear a single lower leg prosthetic over my right calf & foot. So in addition to a pair of size 14 shoes, I also have to get a pair of size 16 shoes, the right of which goes over the brace, & the left joins the right size 14 in the closet…

Happy New Year, Dan! I am sorry that you won’t be doing Bizarro on a daily basis anymore, but hey, you have earned the rest and the time to pursue your paining. Besides which, Wayno’s work is excellent and he will do Bizarro proud.

Good for you, Dan! We all deserve to slow down when we feel the time is right. The company I worked for for the last 20 years of my working life had a policy whereby you could (fairly) easily go from a 40-hour work week to a 24-hour work week In the five years before retiring without losing any benefits. I took advantage of that and it was one of the best decisions I ever made. Really helped ease me into retirement. Look forward to seeing your fine art projects as you make them. Thanks for everything.

Oh, Dan, don’t know what to say. Happy that you are getting to spend more time doing what you really want, sad for us not getting the daily cartoon. And, of course, looking forward to seeing what Wayno comes up with – he’s a funny guy. So I guess I’ll wish you a kinda saddish and bittersweet good luck.

I actually published that cartoon back in the 90s and decided to revive it this past week because I felt it deserved a wider audience. No idea if another cartoonist hit the same gag or not. Happens pretty often in my business.

Reminds me of when I took my nephews to the snow and we made a snowman. The 4 year old added appendages just like in your cartoon. Guess he was at the age to notice things like that, plus he was very precocious anyway. Here’s to staying young at heart! Happy New Year and New Life!

I appreciate that 33 years is a long time, and I understand the desire to shuck off these bonds and go be a painter. And I think all of us appreciate you not pulling a Watterson and just up and making us all go cold turkey and becoming a total recluse. But I’m so bummed that you are stepping back when it feels like we you need you the most, when there are days the only bright spot was the laugh the daily cartoon brings. Now we have to suck it up a whole week waiting for Sunday? I’m not gonna lie – that’s going to be tough!
I guess I should wish you all the very best and remember turpentine should only be used in a well ventilated space. Seriously, open a window and plug in a fan. Picasso never did and look how his work turned out. Don’t be a Picasso!
If the painting thing doesn’t work out, we’ll still be here for you man!

I feel about your announcement in a similar way you described you felt about losing your favourite sun-glasses: this year, I had to quit my job, and the biggest love-affair I ever had in my life ended – and now, I have to learn that you retire. It should be a small thing compared to the other life-events, still on a certain level, it hurts. Though I’m sure, your colleague will give us the same quality of cartoons we’ve got from you, but still, knowing that behind Bizarro, there’s somebody else and not you, will make me miss you!

On the other hand, I completely understand your being tired of the “having to do the homework” feeling. I’ve been living it for over a decade, ever since I’ve entered the job market: writing is the one thing I’ve always been really passionate about, but I make a living from IT. Funny that sometimes things we are good at cannot make us thoroughly happy. Knowing that you may start to live your dream now gives me hope, that one day, maybe I may live mine too. I wish you all the luck and happiness with the one thing you love the most! And I’m looking forward to hearing about your new projects!

Congratulations on choosing to do what you always wanted to do when you grew up, Dan. I will miss your twisted humor, but Wayno has probably followed you long enough that he can fake it until he makes it. I hope he gets the same quantity and quality of hate mail– how else will he ever know it he’s on track.

I bet O2 will be happy to have you as a paint-stained artist who can move at a slower pace than as an ink-stained cartoonist facing daily and weekly deadlines. All the best to both of you, and thanks for all the weirdness.

I see why your symbol count ended up as it did, but the tail in the painting belongs to a whale, which is not a fish. It’s meant to be a nod to “Monstro,” the whale that swallowed Gepetto in the Disney animated classic. :^}

Thanks for all the years of entertainment! I have enjoyed the glimpses of your art as well. I’ve been following you since some time near the beginning when I subscribed to a “Comics Monthly” type ‘zine printing single panel cartoons from all over. Best wishes with your “retirement” and good luck to Wayno! I look forward to see what will happen next.

In regards to the “shoes for one foot” situation, a quick Google search turned up some sites that offer such a service for people with very differently sized feet as well as amputees who only have feet.

Congratulations and best wishes on your semi-retirement, that it works out for you financially and otherwise.

Since you mentioned the Bizarro font, I have been wondering how many instances of each letter you have. For example, in the taxi-Venice cartoon there are three different letter “s”, two “c” and two of “u”. It is a great font and must save you oodles of time over drawing them, but I wonder what other features it has over the usual one-image-per-letter fonts?

Wow! A lot to “digest” (and during this gluttonous holiday period, no less!).
I’ll cut to the chase: CONGRATULATIONS.
While phlegmatically resistant to change(s), I really admire your decision to go for the art you’ve always wanted to do. I look forward to seeing your work, in progress, finished, whatever!
Will you be keeping this web address (or is your blog elsewhere and I’ve been missing it?!?)? Please, PLEASE keep me up to date on where to find you (does that sound stalkerish? It’s not meant to be!).
Again, WOW, way to go, Mr. Piraro! Happy HAPPY New Year!

Thanks, P in B! This will continue to be my only official website. I also have a FB page and Twitter and Instagram, but this site will remain even after the new design kicks in. To be sure you don’t miss anything, enter your email address in that empty box on the right margin of any and all of my blog posts, if you’ve not already done so. I won’t sell or give your info to anyone and only post once a week, on rare occasion twice.

Dan, you’re setting a new standard for starting the new year with a fresh vision and renewed vigor. May your approach to New Year’s Resolutions make 2018 the first of many years for you in your new pursuits.
May it also serve as an example to all us slackers out here in comic goggling land!
Thanks for the years of high quality, if not always high brow, entertainment and inspiration.
Here’s to the future!
*clinks glass with you*

You’ve earned it, Dan! I remember discovering your wit and art back in the mis 80’s when I was in college in San Francisco. You fit right into my mindset at the time and you have kept up the same level of greatness ever since. I’m looking forward to what the future holds in store for you. Good luck, and continued success. (Now all I have to do is order a painting…)

Occasionally I’ll take a cartoon from the 80s or 90s that I think deserves a larger audience and I’ll redraw it and publish it again. In this final week of dailies, I included a few from the past that I’m particularly proud of.

Good luck with the semi-non-retirement/refocusing of objectives/making someone else do all your work for you, Dan! Congrats, you’re a job creator now! I wonder when Wayno will start demanding a living wage…

I was looking at at Watson Comic today and noticed that Wayno’s Avatar was your All Seeing Eye but I never thought that you would stop (almost), sort of, kind of, doing Bizarro. I think it’s awesome that you and Wayno are joining forces. As you know Rina Piccolo did the same with Hilary Price!
I would like to wish you and your Beloved Olive Oyl a very Happy New Year!
Good luck to you and to Wayno!!
Take care,
Pat

Best of luck in retirement. Sorry I discovered you (you didn’t even know you were lost) only a year ago. I hope you have as much fun as I have had as a retiree two years ago. Are you ready to reinvent yourself?

Best wishes on your semi-retirement! You certainly deserve a chance to play outside, although I’ll miss you and your humor very much. I look forward to what Wayno and you come up with and will cherish your Sunday cartoon, too. We are long-time readers of Bizarro and have many of your books. We have one of your signed prints which has a place of honor in our home, so I hope I’ll have the opportunity to purchase more of your fantastic art. Many hugs to you and best wishes for 2018.

I knew this “retirement” was coming, but it still does not make it any easier to process. I dunno exactly how long I have been following your strip (25+ years??) but it has been an inspiration and a part of my daily routine for so long that without your keen craftsmanship I am now just a ship without a rudder. An empty husk. A lost lamb in the woods, if you will. Oh well… such is life. I wish you all the best in whatever you do and look forward to seeing what transpires! (do I see a bit of Dali in those paintings? Nice!) Sihm Sahla Bihm!

Wow. Delightful and sad news. I am excited to see your new work and Waynos turn as the Dread Pirate Roberts…er Bizarro. Thanks for 33 years of consistent fun. May the next 33 return it in spades. If you are holding on to a Canadian Geologist Bizarro frame as your swan song…

I have been loving your work for years. The chance for you to ease back thrills me since I am not selfish enough to want you to slave away till your dying breath. Wayno is highly welcomed and we will get you on Sunday. I just wonder how many books it would take to have all 12,000 currently done art work? I collect many of them and a few I would like to blow up in size and color. Hang on a wall one day. So much good stuff and you have a very nice clean style with some detail work too. All the best in your decision. You now have the best of both worlds. Still working and involved yet with a lighter load. Couldn’t have happened to a better artist/writer/designer/creator than you sir. (Am I spreading it a little thick, eh? Just this once.)

I do wonder if Mr. Watterson would have stayed with it if he had the same kind of decision you did on doing different subjects every day with different characters if he would have kept up with it for say 20 years instead of 2? well not in this universe. Maybe in other parallels he might have. However we have you and 21+ years in this one which is great all by itself!!

godspeed and damn the torpedoes as you enter the frosty crystalline gates of semi-retirement. your work has been epic for a long, long time. thanks for all the fish, dan… looking forward to your new projects… 33 years is a long ass time. i have 31 years of sobriety (complaining, not bragging) so that means i don’t remember when you started……..

I remember seeing one of your paintings, I think it was a bodybuilding Jesus, I thought “he should be doing more of this”, but your cartoons were so entertaining. Can’t wait to see what the next chapter provides. Wayne, will do you proud, I’m sure.

Hello kind sir,
Thank you so much for many a giggle, and while I’m sad you’re cutting back your cartoons I look forward to seeing your other creations, and welcome to your partner/successor.
I thought you might like my father’s version of the nursery rhyme:
There was an old woman
who lived in a shoe.
She had so many children
it filled up with poo.
If it made you smile I feel I’ve given something back for the enjoyment you’ve given me for several years now.
Cheers, M

I congratulate and applaud you for following your dream.You told us this day would come, but that doesn’t make it much easier to accept it. At least we’ll still have you part-time! Happy new year and happy new life to you and Ms. Oyl!

My hubs wears two different-size shoes (had polio as a child). Nordstrom’s will sell him a pair of each size and he returns the two mismatches for a full refund of the price of a pair. He used to have to buy two pairs and we would send the mismatches to a service called “The One-Shoe Crew” in Sacramento, CA.

I just found out what Nordstrom’s does with the mismatched shoes we send back. “Nordstrom Single Shoe Service Online
888/282-6060, secure.nordstrom.com/services/nqcsingleshoes.asp
Nordstrom offers a single-shoe service on limited styles. You can use their online form to tell them your needs and a customer service specialist will contact you within three business days. Nordstrom will do their best to provide a selection of shoes that may work for you.Single shoes that they have in their warehouse are $26.00 each, plus tax.
–https://www.amputee-coalition.org/resources/shoe-exchanges/

You say Trump is the liar? Where have you been these past years. We finally have a president who is doing what he said he would do. Whether you like him or not or how he says what he says, at least he does what he says he will do – IF the congress would let him, that is. Policians are all liars – and he is no politician, anyway. Poly = many and ticks = blood sucking creature thus polytickians are exactly that!

Happy Retirement Dan! Have loved reading your comics and remember the days when you would visit my classroom many years ago in Dallas and amaze my students. Still have the comics we ended up in. Look forward to seeing your paintings!

Happy retirement, Dan. I’ll miss the hidden icons on weekdays. They were always a reassuring daily gauge of mental acuity (important for us seniors to know if we need to tie the car keys to our belt with a shoelace that day.)

Good luck in your new career although I wouldn’t just summarily dismiss being a cowboy.

Been following you for decades, Dan — probably pretty close to the start of it all — though I started subscribing to the blog only recently when your ‘toons became unavailable in the pulpy-fiber version. (And I’m only belatedly catching up with der blogos as I write this!)

I’m really excited and looking forward to seeing what new art you produce. I’m also a “nearing-retirement” artist-in-waiting (more multi-media, along the lines of sculpture and assemblage) and I really get inspired (aka “a kick”) seeing others finally getting out of their routines, and starting to making new creations! Affirms my belief that you can keep the flame alive at any “age” as long as that fire still burns… (Oh, and Hey! I loved the Dali-esque glimpse you shared of your current work!)

So, SO happy for you and Miss Oyl, and the K2-extendo-fam!

Live well,
‘Thew

PS: I’m not sure if I understood correctly: will the Wayno/Piraro dailies continue to be posted here? I tried to find a way to “subscribe” to all-things-Wayno, so I wouldn’t miss anything, but I don’t see where he has a setup similar to yours…

Thanks so much for the lovely note. I wish you luck in your retirement, as well. One of my favorite things about art over other professions is that, unlike ballet or ice hockey, one tends to get better until they die.

Regarding Wayno’s work, you’ll be able to see all of it here. Each day, his Bizarro cartoon is posted on the home page and I post all of each week’s offerings in my weekly blog and comments. Enjoy!